Amanuensis

I remember the Scots composer
-a lapsed Calvinist-
who once told me that
'there is a deep and dazzling darkness to God'
to which I asked him
'whadadahelladya mean?'
to which he played me a tune
Amanuensis
as the raindrops adorned soft the pane
like liquid earrings the colour moon

Kastin's Cultural Cabinet

Things you hear on the radio;

"You know how it is, people talk a lot of shit. They can't help it. They're bound to when you've just got a record deal so lucrative that your black ass may as well be gilded gold. This is an inevitability of humanity, though the peeps pay their dues to Caesar there's always a little bitch like Brutus trying to claim the throne. I don't care what shit has been chatted about him, I once saw him perform a miracle bigger than turning the water into wine. It was one of those Make A Wish things. You know, kids that are ill, that sad kinda shit that I have to smoke a blunt when it gets into my head to stop my brain from hurting. This boy wanted to meet Fiddy for his wish. Fiddy took that shit to another level. He turned up at the little guy's homestead at at two in the morning with the hottest strippers in town, Sweet Gene on rolling duty, and all the Bacardi and coke a boy could dream of. That party was buzzing. The little guy was loving it, chillin with his icon. Fiddy even gave him a nickname, Shorty, it was like he was christening him after he'd been reborn. Cops eventually got called by his no account ho momma to shut the thing down. You know what white bitches be like. 'It's not even his birthday,' she said. Fiddy just laughed and told her, 'You know we don't give a fuck it's not his birthday,' and the night on to da clubs. In the Escalade on the way there Fiddy wrote his biggest hit. Ever seen that film Fantasia? It was like that. Magic, man, no other word for it. We tried to hit Shorty up to be in the video. Breaks your heart though cos.. shit.. shortly after Shorty died."


J-Kwon talking about Curtis James Jackson III on Radio Four's Great Lives.

POPPIES

Down on the Lingfield Trish does a cheap deal for the boys back from Afghanistan. You know, the ones like Prince Harry. Heroine for Heroes, she calls it. It's shit gear but every little bit helps, doesn't it, and you've gotta support the troops.